The original World of Warcraft was released in 2004, and World of Warcraft Classic aims to recreate the state of the MMORPG before its first expansion, The Burning Crusade, was rolled out in January 2007. Previously, players looking for a “vanilla” version of the game were only able to experience it on custom servers such as Nostalrius, which Blizzard shut down in 2016 to protect its intellectual property.